The NASA’s new astronaut vehicle agency has announced the first flight of Orion, will take place in early 2014. It will see Orion make two highly elliptical orbits of the Earth before re-entering the atmosphere and splashing down in the ocean. The vehicle is being designed to take astronauts beyond the space station to destinations such as the Moon, asteroids and even Mars.
NASA is also developing a dedicated new rocket, known at the moment only as the Space Launch System (SLS), to put Orion and any associated equipment in orbit. Because the SLS will not be available until at least 2017, the Exploration Flight Test, or EFT-1, of Orion in 2014 will have to use an existing heavy-lift rocket.
This is likely to be the Delta-IV Heavy rocket that is used currently by the United States Air Force to launch its big surveillance and communications satellites. The launch will take place from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
The new capsule is being built by Lockheed Martin Space Systems. The EFT-1 will supply the company's engineers with important flight performance data.
Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA’s human exploration and operations associate administrator said, “The entry part of the test will produce data needed to develop a spacecraft capable of surviving speeds greater than 20,000mph (32,000km/h) and safely return astronauts from beyond Earth orbit".
"This test is very important to the detailed design process in terms of the data we expect to receive."
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